[Reader-list] Remembering Prof. Bernard S. Cohn, 1928-2003

[sadan]

This is another forward from H-Asia on Prof.Bernard Cohn.
sadan.


H-ASIA
November 26, 2003

Professor Bernard S. Cohn, 1928-1975
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Ed. note:
The least happy aspect of editing H-ASIA arises when we must post the news
of the passing of a colleague.  In the present case, I think we should say
the passing of a giant.  Barney Cohn was one of the most imaginative and
innovative scholars of South Asian studies in the past century, and, as a
member of the faculty at Chicago, the mentor of two generations of
scholars.  I never studied with Barney, but visited him often from my
early days as a graduate student at Minnesota.  He was always prepared to
look at the world from a fresh perspective.  His academic years were cut
short by illness, but the body of his scholarship represent a significant
intellectual journey which interrogated the practices of at least two
disciplines.  Today's readers might overlook how much these essays
challenged and stimulated South Asia scholars at the time, for Barney's
new ideas have graduated, becoming  today's conventional wisdom. I do not
want to forget one other aspect of Barney Cohn's approach to life and
work -- he had a wonderful sense of ironic humor.  I recall that in his
dedication to his 1971 book _India: The Social Anthropology of a
Civilization_ his dedication concluded 'maybe it wasn't all for the
birds.'  I am very grateful to H-ASIA member Professor David Lelyveld for
preparation of the following obituary.  We would welcome further memories
and reflections on Barney Cohn's life and work.                              
                 FFC
 ***********************************************************************
 From: David Lelyveld <LelyveldD at wpunj.edu>


Bernard S. Cohn, one of the leading scholars of modern Indian society and
culture, died after a long illness in Chicago yesterday, November 25th.
"An anthropologist among the historians," as in the title of one of his
early essays and a later collection of his scholarly papers, Cohn called
upon  anthropological insight to examine the history of India under British
colonial rule and the culture and society of British colonizers. He led the
way in identifying and analyzing "colonial knowledge," British ideas about
the nature of Indian law and society, such as the concept of "caste," as a
cornerstone for the justification and exercise of state power.

In a series of highly influential papers, Cohn examined the ways British
rule in India constructed and transformed Indian institutions and practices
with respect to law, land ownership, language, administrative routines,
political ritual, art and even clothing. In an essay on the Indian census,
he argued that the categories that British social analysis imposed on Indian
society became institutionalized as "objectified" facts that took on a life
of their own. A detailed study of the so-called Delhi Darbar or Imperial
Assemblage of 1877, cast an ethnographic eye on the rituals of power that
British colonialism developed as a strategy  to reach what they took to be
Indian cultural sensibilities.  These papers were characterized not only by
scholarly thoroughness and a powerful command of anthropological theory, but
by a keen eye for irony and a sharp sense of humor.

Like many anthropologists of his generation, Cohn started off in the early
1950s with a village study, focusing on members of a  so-called untouchable
community and their efforts to raise their social status. From this field
work in the vicinity of Benares,  the basis of his Ph.D. thesis at Cornell
University, Cohn moved on to the history of that region, contrasting the
historical memory of people in the present with documentary research about
the ways institutions were transformed since the establishment of British
power in the late 18th century.  As he moved further into historical
studies, he developed a significant influence on the field of history
itself, with many historians moving away from the study of the political
narrative and famous leaders to a broader study of how cultural categories
are bound up with power.

Cohn's joint appointment to the departments of anthropology and history at
the University of Chicago in 1964, helped create a new relationship between
these two fields and to train numerous scholars in what came to be known as
anthropological history, many of whom have in turn taught further
generations at universities throughout the United States.  His combination
of sharp criticism, generosity and wit reached beyond his own students and
set scholarly agendas beyond the study of modern India. Well before Foucault
and Said, Cohn developed an independent critique of the ways in which
ethnographic and other forms of sociological investigation and knowledge are
intertwined with power and exploitation.

Bernard Cohn was born in Brooklyn in 1928 and attended New York City public
schools. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, then did his
graduate work at Cornell. He started his teaching career at the University
of Rochester, where he was chair of the Anthropology Department, and has
been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, New York
University, and the California Institute of Technology. He has held numerous
fellowships, including a Guggenheim, a Rockefeller and NEH, and has served
on the editorial board of numerous scholarly journals and academic
organizations. He is survived by his wife of 53 years, the former Rella
Israly, three daughters, Jennifer, Abigail, and Naomi, and a son, Jacob.

_India: the social anthropology of a civilization_ (Prentice-Hall, 1971)

_An anthropologist among the historians and other essays_ (Delhi: Oxford
     University Press, 1987).
_Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: the British in India_ (Princeton
     Unversity Press, 1996).


David Lelyveld
Professor of History
Associate Dean
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
William Paterson University
Wayne, NJ 07470

lelyveldd at wpunj.edu
(973)720-3316